Switching device using superlattice without any dielectric barriers

ABSTRACT

A switching device has an S (Superconductor)-N (Normal Metal)-S superlattice to control the stream of electrons without any dielectric materials. Each layer of said Superconductor has own terminal. The superlattice spacing is selected based on “Dimensional Crossover Effect”. This device can operate at a high frequency without such energy losses as devices breaking the superconducting state. The limit of the operation frequency in the case of the Nb/Cu superlattice is expected to be in the order of 10 18  Hz concerning plasmon loss energy of the normal metals (Cu; in the order of 10 3  eV).

This is a CIP of PCT/JP00/08143 filed on Jan. 17, 2000.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a switching device using S-N-Ssuperlattice.

2. Description of the Related Art

Since the discovery of the transistor effect by William BradfordShockley, John Bardeen and Walter. H. Brattain in 1948, thesemiconductor device for computing has generated a tremendous number ofconcepts related to the revolution of the world. The fastest speed ofdata processing is required to synchronize with the stream ofconsciousness. In the field of electronic devices, in order to catch upwith such a stream, the circuit elements have been downsized to satisfythe “Scaling Rule”, which suggests that the processing speed should beimproved by downsizing the circuit assembly, including Field EffectTransistors (FET), to reduce the product of resistivity and capacitanceof integrated circuits. However, it is becoming increasingly difficultto meet the contemporary demands of high speed processing by the ScalingRule. Since the switching operation of the FET is originated frommotions of carriers neighboring the gate contact by bias voltage, theswitching frequency depends upon the mobility of the carriers. Recently,Y. Nish predicted that the chip frequency would be restrictedapproximately up to 1.1×10⁹ Hz until the year of 2010 (Y. Nish,Proceedings of International Symposium on Control of Single Particlesand its Application (1996)). According to the prediction, theperformance of a Central Processing Unit (CPU) should be a little higherthan the common units. That is to say that processing inflated amount ofinformation by large-sized software should be restricted by the limit ofthe mobility of carriers inside semiconductors.

On the other hand, a switching device using superconducting materialwith a tunneling insulating barrier, predicted by Brian David Josephson,has been known to be a high frequency switching device, which consumesextremely low energy (B. D. Josephson, Phys. Rev. Lett., 1(7)(1962)251).However the Josephson junction device has never been put to practicaluse because the switching operation beyond a frequency of 7×10⁸ Hz issuffered from chaotic noise. Besides, there are three properties such asattenuation of signals transmitted across the tunneling barrier, delayof signals by parasitic capacitance and mechanical fragility againstthermal stress. The oxide superconductor discovered by K. Alex Mullerand J. Georg Bednorz (K. Alex Muller and J. Georg Bednorz, Zeitschriftfur Physik, B64(1986)189), which is able to operate at highertemperature, has been introduced to the switching device. In spite of alot of trial, switching devices using an oxide superconductor have neverbeen practically used because of their own property. In this paper, wepropose that we can solve all problems by using a metal superconductorsuperlattice.

There are two reasons why the oxide superconductor has never beenapplied to practical Josephson devices. First, the phase change of thewave function should be fluctuated by the existence of incoherentinterfaces such as the grain boundaries. Second, it is difficult tointegrate the device because of the low transmittance rate of the wavefunction across such incoherent interfaces. Coherent length of the oxidesuperconductor is designed to be shortest (shorter than 0.1 nm) to raisethe superconducting critical temperature Tc (H. Hayakawa and Y. Takagi,Oyo Butsuri (in Japanese), 58(5)(1989)766). Such short coherent lengthis realized by inserting ionic layers with high electric polarization asthe partitions of the coherent region. Accordingly, the delay of wavefunction between conducting layers cannot be avoided (FIG. 1A). Besides,the delay should not be uniform in the region neighboring the incoherentinterface (FIG. 1B). By such rack of uniformity, thermal noises arepreference beyond the switching frequency of 10⁴ Hz (L. Hao, J. C.MacFarlane, C. M. Pegrum, Supercond. Sci. Technol., 9(1996)678) anddynamical impedance of the interface is increased (K. K. Likharev and VK. Semenov, JETP. Lett., 15(1972)3537), therefore, transmittance of thewave function is lowered in the high frequency region. This means thatthese problems cannot be essentially solved by partitioning the coherentregion by using dielectric material.

Superconductivity is decided by coherence of wave function of the Cooperpair, and the coherence is realized by spin exchange correlation. Thismeans we can solve the problem of partitioning the conducting region bycontrolling spin exchange correlation. Then we are going to try tounderstand the mechanism of the Giant Magneto-Resistance (GMR) as anexample of artificial control of spin exchange correlation. It isreported that GMR is realized in the metal system in a mesoscopic scaleand resistivity is lowered by 50% in the applied magnetic field (eg. M.N. Baibich, J. M. Broto, A. Fert, F. Nguyen Van Dau, F. Petroff, P.Etienne, G. Creuzet, A. Friederich and J. Chazelas, Phys. Rev. Lett.,61(1988)2472). GMR is originated from the fact that transition ofitinerant electrons between the ferro-magnetic layers is restricted whenthe wave function considering spin direction is opposite to the nextlayer (Kondo effect (Jun Kondo, “An abstract of metal electron theory”(in Japanese), Shokabo Press (1983))). The experimental result on thespin ordering in the system revealing GMR has already been reported (N.Hosono, S. Araki, K. Mibu and T. Shinjo, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn.,59(6)(1990)1925). According to this report, the half-ordered reflection,which is the proof of spin ordering in the scale of the superlatticespacing, can be observed in the experiment of the neutron diffraction.

It should be emphasized that the well-controlled magnetic domain can berealized in the mesoscopic system by control of the superlatticespacing. This suggests that transition of itinerant electrons can becontrolled by tuning the spacing of strongly correlated layers withoutinserting any dielectric insulator. According to this suggestion, we canalso design the superlattice using correlated materials such assuperconductor without any dielectric materials.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An object of the present invention is to provide superconductor withoutany dielectric materials.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a switching devicebeing operable at a high speed.

To achieve the objects, there is provided a superconducting switchingdevice having a Superconductor/Metal/Superconductor superlattice.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A shows the influence of electric polarization inside the oxidesuperconductor during the propagation of the wave function between theconducting layers. In case of the Josephson device using a oxidesuperconductor, the thermal noise is preferentially beyond the switchingfrequency of 10⁴ Hz. According to the report by K. K. Likharev, suchthermal noise is caused by the increase of dynamic impedance in the highfrequency region. That is to say there exists a high amount of electricpolarization inside the crystal of Perovskite structure. Furthermore,the wave function should be delayed by electric polarization.

FIG. 1B shows the schematic diagram showing the phase change neighboringthe incoherent interfaces. The ordering parameter should naturally belowered by the delay of the wave function and the coupling of the wavefunction should be weak.

FIG. 2 shows the layer-by-layer anti-ferromagnetic spin arrangementconcluded by the experiment of the resistivity measurement. Theelectronic states in each layer were simulated by the ab-initio LinearCombination of Atomic Orbital calculation (Discrete Variational Xαapproximation (H. Adachi, M. Tsukada and C. Satoko, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn.,45(1978)875)). Since spin fluctuation according to the mechanism of“thermal stabilization mechanism of the Cooper pair” 11 is independentfrom the normal electronic state, we can treat the mesoscopic spinarrangement schematically using the normal electronic state. The spindirection in the next layer should be opposite in order to lower thetotal energy described by the function of the exchange correlationparameter. If such anti-ferromagnetic arrangement is realized in thesystem of the superconductor, the stream of electrons should be dividedwithout dielectric materials.

FIG. 3A shows the schematic diagram of unit cell of the 4-probeswitching device. The transition between the layers whose wave functionsconsidering spin directions are identical is preferential. As a resultof Kondo effect, the transition to the next layer is restricted.

FIG. 3B shows the schematic diagram of the 4-probe device constructed bysource layers, gate layers and drain layers. The switch should be turnedoff, if Bloch resonance is modulated by the gate operation or by singleevents from the external environments. By considering the analogybetween superconducting phenomena and GMR, the stream of electronsshould be divided without any dielectric materials. This device could bemade from another kind of spin-exchange-correlated materials.

FIG. 4 shows the schematic diagram of the energy band inside of the unitcell of the proposed 4-probe device. As described previously, spinfluctuation according to the mechanism of “thermal stabilization of theCooper pair” is independent from the normal electronic state, therefore,we can treat the mesoscopic spin arrangement schematically using thenormal state. The normal state inside of the superconducting layers arearranged anti-ferromagnetically in the mesoscopic scale and areseparated by the electronic states of the normal metal layers. As aresult of Kondo effect and/or “Tunneling barrier effect (in the text)”,Bloch resonance is accomplished.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

In the system of Superconducting metal-Normal metal-Superconductingmetal (S-N-S) superlattice, the dimensional crossover effect has beenreported. The group of Ivan K. Schuller et. al. has investigated theeffect in the Nb/Cu system. According to their reports (Cornel S. L.Chun, Guo-Guang Zheng, Jose L. Vincent, and Ivan K. Schuller, Phys Rev.,B29(9)(1984) 4915), the coherent length of the Nb/Cu superlattice isanisotropic only under severe conditions in the mesoscopic system, andthe correlation between superconducting layers should be maximized ifthe superlattice spacing is appropriated.

Recently we reported on the layer-by-layer anti-ferromagnetically spinordering in the Nb/Cu system on a mesoscopic scale (K. Tsukui, M. Yata,I. Ohdomari, T Osaka N. Yagi and H. Tsukui, Appl. Surface Sci.,162–163(2000)239–244). An anomalous increase of the resistivity wasobserved with high reproducibility as a result of the resitivitymeasurements in the system of the Nb/Cu superconducting superlattice,whose spacing is fixed to be 16.8 nm and 14.7 nm, respectively, in orderto maximize the interlayer spin exchange correlation. Taking the factinto account that the anomaly was observed only when the interlayercorrelation was maximized, we concluded that the anti-ferromagneticarrangement of the electron band should be realized in the mesoscopicscale and the anomaly should be ascribed to the transition of theitinerant electrons described by Kondo effect (FIG. 2).

If such anti-ferromagnetic ordering is also realized in a superconductorsystem, the analogy of the superconducting phenomena and GMR should beconcluded. As described above, the stream of electrons is dividedwithout a dielectric insulator in the system revealing GMR, therefore,the transition of Cooper pairs in the system of the S-N-S superlatticeshould be controlled without any dielectric materials.

4-Probes Switching Device of the Preferred Embodiment

FIG. 3A shows the schematic diagram of a unit cell of a 4-probes(4-terminals) switching device. The transition of the electrons betweenthe correlated layers should be preferential and the transition to thenext layer should be restricted by the anti-ferromagnetic spinarrangement. Based on this philosophy, a 4-probe device with a source, agate and a drain has been proposed by the author (K. Tsukui). Theprinciple of switching operation is based on the modulation of the Blochresonance, (L. Esaki and R. Tsu, IBM research Note, RC-2418 (1969) L.Esaki and R. Tsu, IBM J. Res. Develop., 14(1970)61; L. Esaki, PhysicaScripta, T42(1992)103) and nonlinear transport due to Bloch resonance.As described in FIG. 4, the occupied electronic states with differentspin directions of superconducting layers are separated by normal metallayers in the same way as the semiconductor superlattice. Electronsinside of the superlattice are resonated and the resonance state couldbe modulated by the gate operation or single events introduced from theexternal environment. As a result of the modulation of Bloch resonance,the Source-Drain voltage has continuous values originated from thenonlinear transport property of the superlattice (K. F. Renk, E.Schomburg, A. A. Ignatov, J. Grenzer, S. Winnerl, K. Hofbeck, Physica,B244(1998)196), which is all the same as the case of the semiconductorsuperlattice except the treatment of tunneling barriers. In the case ofS-N-S structure, the itinerant electrons are transmitted through theparamagnetic metal layers. However the transition from the initialsuperconducting layer to the final superconducting layer is highlyrestricted by the spin direction at the lower temperature according toKondo effect. The resistivity of itinerant electrons (ρ↑) is decided bythe equation below.$\rho_{\uparrow} = {\rho_{0}{\pi^{2}\left( {N_{Para}\left( ɛ_{F} \right)} \right)}^{2}J^{2}{S\left( {S + 1} \right)}\left( {1 - {4{N_{Para}\left( ɛ_{F} \right)}J\;\log\frac{k_{B}T}{D}}} \right)}$

Resistivity is a function of both temperature and electron density atthe Fermi level of the inserted paramagnetic metal (N_(para)(ε_(F)).Transition probability of itinerant electrons is very low at lowtemperatures below 100K, therefore, inserted paramagnetic metal servesas an insulator, which can be treated as the band gap in the case ofsemiconductor superlattices. This “tunneling barrier effect” has beenauthorized to be adapted to the case of the paramagnetic layer with adifferent angular momentum which is inserted between thespin-exchange-correlated layers (L. I. Schiff, “Quantum Mechanics”(Second Edition), McGraw-Hill (1955)). Consequently, this device can beoperated while maintaining the superconducting current by Blochresonance, therefore, the operation is independent of the frequencylimit decided by the gap energy in the case of the conventional RC-typeJosephson junction.

Furthermore, the correlation between the source layers and the drainlayers can be summated to the unity because the basic units, asmentioned before, are stacked into multilayers in the order ofSource(S)/Gate(G)/Drain(D)/G/S/G/D/G or S/G/D/S/G/D as shown in FIG. 3B.For example, the sources are connected with each other, the gates areconnected with each other, the drains are connected with each other,thereby solving the problem of transmittance. Consequently, all problemsrelated to the practical use of the superconductor device are solved byusing this device. It is possible to operate this device at extremelyhigh frequency without such energy losses as the RC-type switchingdevices because superconducting state is not destroyed. The limit of theoperation frequency in the case of the Nb/Cu superlattice is expected tobe in the order of 10¹⁸ Hz concerning plasmon loss energy of the normalmetals (Cu; in the order of 10³ eV). If such high frequency operationcould be possible, the electrical pulse could be transformed intophotons and incident photons and high-energy particles could be detectedas electric pulses.

As stated above, we have discussed on the aspect that the operation ofthe CPU at higher frequency by other ways than integrating the circuitsaccording to the Scaling Rule. In order to fabricate extremely highfrequency switching devices using superconductors, we should get rid ofthe parasitic capacitance (electric polarization) neighboring thejunction. As an example of such a device, we proposed a 4-probe deviceusing the S-N-S superlattice to control the stream of electrons withoutany dielectric materials.

The contents of the cited references are incorporated herein byreference in their entirety.

This application is based on International Patent Application No.PCT/JP00/08143 filed on Nov. 17, 2000 and amendments under PatentCooperation Treaty articles 19 and 34 filed for the above-notedInternational Patent Application. The disclosure of the InternationalPatent Application and the amendments are incorporated herein byreference in their entirety.

1. A superconducting switching device having a a first superconductorlayer (Nb layer; source) serving as one end of current path (sourcedrain current path), a first normalconductor layer (Cu layer) formed onsaid first superconductor layer, a second superconductor layer (Nblayer; gate) formed on said first normalconductor layer and serving as acontrol electrode for controlling the on and off of the current path, asecond normalconductor layer (Cu layer) formed on said secondsuperconductor layer, and a third superconductor layer (Nb layer; drain)formed on said second normalconductor layer serving as another end ofthe current path.
 2. The superconducting switching device according toclaim 1, wherein each of said first, second, and third superconductorlayers has its own terminal.
 3. The superconducting switching deviceaccording to claim 1, wherein each of said first to third superconductorlayers and said first and second normalconductor layers has suchthickness as electrons in said first to third superconductor layers areresonated.
 4. The superconducting switching device according to claim 3,wherein each of said first, second, and third superconductor layerscomprises an Nb layer, and each of said first and second normalconductorlayers comprises a Cu layer, the thickness of the Nb layer and Cu layerare 16.8 nm and 14.7 nm, respectively.
 5. The superconducting switchingdevice according to claim 4, wherein said first superconductor layer hasa source terminal and serves as a source layer, said secondsuperconductor layer has a gate terminal and serves as a gate layer, andsaid third superconductor layer has a drain terminal and serves as adrain layer.
 6. The superconducting switching device according to claim5, wherein said first and second normalconductor layers comprise metallayers.
 7. The superconducting switching device according to claim 5,wherein electrical resistance between said first superconductor layerand said third superconductor layer is controlled by the electronicstate of the gate layer and/or single events introduced from theexternal environment.
 8. The superconducting switching device accordingto claim 1, wherein electrical resistance between said firstsuperconductor layer and said third superconductor layer is controlledby the electronic state of the gate layer and/or single eventsintroduced from external environment.
 9. The superconducting switchingdevice according to claim 4, wherein a Source-Drain voltage reveals oneof multi-value in accordance with the electronic state of the sate layerand/or single events introduced from external environment.
 10. Thesuperconducting switching device according to claim 1, including aplurality of unit cells each having said first, second, and thirdsuperconductor layers and said first and second normalconductor layers.11. The superconducting switching device according to claim 10, whereinsaid first superconductor layer of the plurality of unit cells areconnected with each other, and said second superconductor layer of theplurality of unit cells are connected with each other, and said thirdsuperconductor layer of the plurality of unit cells are connected witheach other.
 12. A switching device characterized by having a firstsuperconductor layer (Nb layer; source) serving as one end of currentpath (source drain current path), a first metal layer (Cu layer) formedon said first superconductor layer, a second superconductor layer (Nblayer; gate) formed on said first metal layer and serving as a controlelectrode for controlling the on and off of the current path, a secondmetal payer (Cu layer) formed on said second superconductor layer, athird superconductor layer (Nb layer; drain) formed on said second metallayer serving as another and of the current path, a third metal layer(Cu layer) formed on said third superconductor layer, a fourthsuperconductor layer (Nb layer; source) formed on said third metallayer, serving as one end of current path (source drain current path),and connected to said first superconductor layer, a fourth metal layer(Cu layer) formed on said first superconductor layer, a fifthsuperconductor layer (Nb layer; gate) formed on said fourth metal layer,serving as a control electrode for controlling the on and off of thecurrent path, and connected to said second superconductor layer, a fifthmetal layer (Cu layer) formed on said fifth superconductor layer, and asixth superconductor layer (Nb layer; drain) formed on said fifth metallayer, serving as another end of the current path and connected to thirdsuperconductor layer.